fainter than the original. It was performed at Ludlow Castle, before the
Earl of Bridgewater, and was suggested by an accident to the Earl's
children, a simple accident, in which Milton saw the possibility of
"turning the common dust of opportunity to gold."

The story is that of a girl who becomes separated from her brothers
in a wood, and is soon lost. The magician Comus [Footnote: In
mythology Comus, the god of revelry, was represented as the son of
Dionysus (Bacchus, god of wine), and the witch Circe. In Greek
poetry Comus is the leader of any gay band of satyrs or dancers.
Milton's masque of _Comus_ was influenced by a similar story
in Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_, by Spenser's "Palace of
Pleasure" in _The Faery Queen_ (see above "Sir Guyon" in
Chapter IV), and by Homer's story of the witch Circe in the
_Odyssey_.] appears with his band of revelers, and tries to
bewitch the girl, to make her like one of his own brutish
followers. She is protected by her own purity, is watched over by
the Attendant Spirit, and finally rescued by her brothers. The
story is somewhat like that of the old ballad of "The Children in
the Wood," but it is here transformed into a kind of morality play.

[Sidenote: COMUS AND THE TEMPEST]

In this masque may everywhere be seen the influence of Milton's
predecessors and the stamp of his own independence; his Puritan spirit
also, which must add a moral to the old pagan tales. Thus, Miranda
wandering about the enchanted isle (in Shakespeare's _The Tempest_)
hears strange, harmonious echoes, to which Caliban gives expression:

The isle is full of noises,